Leaves

During a job today, another company's crew was next door. They finished there job before us and had blown a number of leaves into the street in front of our job site. This was not a problem to us since there were many leaves on our site against the curb before we arrived (in fact all the houses had leaves against the curb). When we blew the leaves from the curb into the street as well as some leaves from the drive way (by the way the lawn was covered with leaves to begin with) we noticed that there were just to many leaves in the street in front of this house. So we did the best the we could by using the blower to put most of the leaves in a line and then have run the mower over them to bag them up. During this process a neighbor came out and was outraged by the number of leaves in the street and was complaining that the wind will blow them into her yard. My question is how does everyone handle the leaves on the street and the yard? As for the neighbor she told us, as we were trying to clean up the leaves that she was going to tell our client. Well she did and both of them came out. I tryed to tell our client that we were not finished with the job and she understood. Later she told me that the neighbor was very unpleasant prior to this and had left notes about her leaves blowing from our clients yard to hers. The job itself took 2 HRS because we bagged the leaves with the mower.

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, START BY BLOWING ALL THE LEAVES INTO THE YARD. BLOW THEM OFF THE CURB BEFORE YOU EVER START MOWING, BLOW THEM OFF THE DRIVEWAY, FROM AROUND TREES ETC. I have got leaves down to a science. We blow everything first so that the MACHINES DO THE WORK. It took me a while to figure this out but if yoy do your cleanup in reverse, meaning first, then what you have left is leaf dust that CAN be blown in the road, back in the yard is preferred. I try never to leave a whole leaf in the yard or in the road, neighbors do *****, been there done that.<p>HERES WHAT WE DO:<p>1. BLOW EVERYTHING<br>2. MULCH EVERYTHING<br>3. BAG WHATEVERS LEFT IF MULCHING DIDN'T TAKE CARE OF IT.<br>4. DO A FINAL BLOW, USUALLY DUST THAT WILL BLOW AWAY AS SOON AS A COUPLE CARS PASS BY.<br>5. LOAD UP AND GET ON TO THE NEXT ONE.<p>P.S. I never run my baggers over the yard until we have mulched everything as fine as we can get it, by doing that I only have to dump once or twice vs. 7-8<p>Homer

Neighbors always cause more problems for us than the customers. They always seem to get involved for no reason. <p>If the customer wants the leaves cleaned off the street, do as Homer said, break out the &quot;power rake&quot; first <p>We ran into a similar issue a couple of years ago. We took care of a lawn on a Cul De Sac with a large oak tree in the middle of the circle, no grass or anything just the tree. Leaves would fall an we would blow them back under the tree. This was ok with all except one guy. He said he and others would rather us not blow the leaves under the tree but to pick them up. Our customer wanted no part of paying to pick up leaves from a tree that was not on his property. So now they stay in the street. I will clean the curbs and the street a little ways out.<p>

I start out as Homer does. I blow the leaves away from the house, trees and from under the shrubs if the customer wants. I don't mulch first because my tractor does that before it is vacumed in to the hopper. I keep sharp blade to facilate this process. And I have a powerful tractor. I will do leaves when it is breezy. But since Iwork alone. I don't do leaves when it is windy. It's a complete waste of time when you work alone for the leaves to blow back in your face and where you have just blown. Wind is just like heavy rain for me when It come to the leaf business. It just adds to the customers cost when you are out there chasing wind blown leaves.

What kind of bagger for your mowers are you all using? One that attaches to ztr or wb? Or are you using an old style lawn tractor bagger? This will help me when I perform these jobs in the fall<p>----------<br>Integrated Landscape Solutions<br>Lexington, KY

We do the opposite from Homer. All beds and obstacles are cut in with back pack blowers. The turf is then blown with a push blower into the curb side. The mountains of leaves are then vacuumed into the dump truck with a leaf loader. The turf is mulched or cut and vac'd depending, and the street one car width is vacuumed clean with a Billy Goat or blown off. That is our science that works for us. As far as the neighbors go; go past the property line, watch the wind, and when all else fails - don't sweat it.